


Entropy Changes

by kat_fanfic



Series: Malex Relay One Shots [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Deserves Nice Things, Angst and Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Forlex break-up (implied), Forrest is a little bit of a dick in this, Kinda getting back together, M/M, Malex being cosmic, Maria DeLuca is a Good Friend, Michael Guerin Deserves Nice Things, Michael Guerin Loves Alex Manes, Misunderstandings, Near Future, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 02, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29136399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat_fanfic/pseuds/kat_fanfic
Summary: Alex shook his head, raking trembling fingers through his hair. There was no time to explain, no time to tell her about the cold hard ball of pure dread that sat in his gut, not when every second wasted was one more that could take Michael farther away from him.
Relationships: (Past) Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Forrest Long/Alex Manes, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Malex Relay One Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116296
Comments: 14
Kudos: 102





	Entropy Changes

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self-indulgent dramatic piece of fluffy angst - flangst? - that kind of wrote itself. Thanks for reading! <3

“Please? This is such a great song.”

“Nope,” Alex said, shaking his head. “No way.” He was rather enjoying being off his feet and even if he’d much rather be at home, he couldn’t deny that the beer at the Pony was superior to the one he had on his fridge. 

“Come on, you’ll love it,” Forrest wheedled, grabbing his hand and pulling him up with more force than Alex had anticipated. He lost his balance, stumbling into Forrest on his way to standing. He didn’t miss the triumphant smile on the other man’s face, or the way his arm came around Alex’s waist, as if his stagger had been a deliberate concession on his part. 

Pressing a hand to Forrest’s chest, Alex leaned his hip back against the table. “This is not happening.”

Forrest’s smile widened. “But see, you’re already up now. Hard part’s over, Captain.”

Alex huffed in amused exasperation. “Don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”

Forrest rolled his eyes in a way that, only a few weeks ago, Alex would have found adorable. Now, the main thing he felt was frustration. 

“It’s just one dance, Alex. Just a little sway around the dance floor, nothing plenty of other couples have done before.”

“Right.” Alex shook his head, unable to put into words the feeling of dread that filled him at the mere thought. His father was gone, yes, but that didn’t mean that Jesse Manes’ legacy of shame didn’t still live within him. He had made strides since CrashCon, huge ones even, and he was proud of himself for all of them. 

But just because he’d kissed Forrest in front of everybody that night at the Pony didn’t mean that he’d just magically gotten rid of all of his hang-ups about being gay. Forrest tended to forget that he was with someone who was very newly out of the closet and this wasn’t their first disagreement about PDA’s and publicly showing their relationship.

“Come on,” Forrest needled, tugging on Alex’s hand. “I’ll make it worth your while, Cap--, uh, Alex.”

Alex gently, but insistently, pulled out of his grip. “I said no, ‘Rest, and I meant it.”

Usually, Forrest knew when to quit, when to back off. This time, he insisted, a weird gleam in his eyes as he repeatedly glanced toward one of the corner tables. Alex didn’t have to check. He knew who was sitting there. “One dance?” Forrest asked, tugging on his hand again, more insistently this time. “For me?”

“Forrest.” Alex put some steel in his tone. “I said no.”

Forrest opened his mouth to speak, but instead was forcibly hauled back by strong hands assisted by what Alex immediately recognized as Michael’s telekinesis, and then the man himself shoved between them, getting into Forrest’s face with a show of very characteristic hubris. 

“I distinctly heard him say no, Nazi guy.” His voice was calm, mild even, but Alex was all too familiar with the edge that flavored his tone. “You should learn some manners.”

Forrest, never one to back down from a challenge, huffed disparagingly. “Even if I did, I’m pretty sure I won’t learn them from you, cowboy.” To his credit, he had taken a step back from Michael, a kernel of self-preservation making him fear the predator in front of him. 

“At least I know not to pressure my partner into things they don’t want to do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Forrest retorted, sneering at Michael. “Or maybe your ‘partners’,” he made mocking little air quotes around the word, “are too busy running from you to give you the chance. Oh, wait, it’s the other way around, right?”

Michael bared his teeth in a mock-grin and Alex’s stomach knotted. He knew that expression intimately and nothing good ever happened when it made an appearance. So before Michael could do something the both of them would regret, he stepped up to the two of them. 

“Enough.” 

His voice cut trough their corner of the bar, making Maria look up and take notice of their little spectacle. Alex refused to blush under her amused gaze. Two men fighting over him hadn’t exactly been how he’d planned the night to go. “Guerin, let him go. Please?”

“Haven’t heard him apologize yet,” Guerin growled and despite everything, a tiny spark of warmth glowed in Alex’s belly at the protectiveness. 

He ignored the feeling. “I didn’t ask him for an apology,” he said, lowly. “But I’m asking _you_ to let him go.”

Michael glanced at him, once, amber eyes dark and serious. At first, it looked like he would ignore Alex just like Forrest had, but then he pulled back, letting the other man go with a light shove that was a little less light than it should have been.

Forrest gave Guerin a shit-eating grin and murmured: “down boy,” not quite under his breath and Alex snarled wordlessly, turning towards him. “Stop provoking him. You’re supposed to be the mature one, remember?”

That gave Forrest pause. After a long moment of warring emotions - resentment wrestling with irritation, with a little disgust mixed in just for fun - he backed off, holding his hands up in surrender. He even had the grace to look a little ashamed at his behavior, but still his eyes flickered to Michael and there was such hostility in his gaze that even Michael looked taken aback.

Alex sighed. Not for the first time, he regretted telling Forrest about his complicated history with Michael Guerin. He’d had to edit out a lot from the story, and amongst those edits were some of the most important motivators for a lot of Michael’s more crappy decisions. Rosa’s death and taking the blame for something he didn’t do, the subsequent falling out with this siblings, Max’s - albeit temporary - death just when they’d begun to find their way back to each other, watching his long-lost mother get blown up in front of him… Even repeating the list to himself made him feel sick to his stomach. 

But all Forrest knew was that Michael had hurt Alex, had started a relationship with his best friend seemingly out of spite, and had walked out during the song Alex had written for him, for _them_. And yes, maybe Alex still had a little trouble with that last one himself, but that didn’t change the fact that it wasn’t Forrest’s job to hate Michael for him.

Michael huffed softly, picking up his hat from where it had fallen during the initial confrontation. “He should accept your boundaries, Alex,” he murmured, glancing at him from under his lashes. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Alex nodded. “You’re right. And believe me, he and I will have a long conversation about that.”

“Good.”

Forrest’s head snapped to him, looking more than a little betrayed.

Alex shook his head, rubbed a hand across his face. He was too tired for this shit. “Yeah, but, just for future reference, generally the last thing I need is you picking a fight with my boyfriend, Guerin.” It came out harsher than he’d intended, but damn, all he’d wanted was a cold beer and some easy company. He hadn’t come prepared to navigate the minefield that was his relationship with his alien ex-boyfriend. 

Thankfully, all Guerin said was: “Right. Of course. Sorry for interruptin’,” in that devastating drawl of his and then he was gone, not waiting for a reply. A pang of unease went through him as Alex watched the retreating form, watched him ignore both Max’s and Maria’s call. 

He shook his head and with a deep sigh, he turned to Forrest. “You and me need to talk. Now.” He could only hope that at least some of the evening was salvageable. 

* * * *

_“The last thing I need is you picking a fight with my boyfriend, Guerin.”_

Michael froze, Alex’s words cutting into him like a blade. A dull hurt bloomed in his chest, stole his breath for a second or two. He looked at Alex, at Forrest, at the way they were standing shoulder to shoulder, a united front.

Cosmic, he and Alex had once called their connection. 

There wasn’t much of it left now. 

Michael swallowed. “Right,” he murmured, studiously avoiding Alex’s eyes. “Of course. Sorry for interruptin’.”

He turned and walked out, ignoring Maria’s call of his name, ignored Max’s. 

He barely made it to his truck. Something inside of him had shattered the moment Alex had chosen a side he wasn’t on, something vital he hadn’t even known could be broken. Leaning against the car door with his face pressed into his forearm, Michael tried to breathe through it all, tried to keep his damn fool heart from bursting out of his chest.

This was what he’d been trying to avoid ever since he’d walked out of the Pony the night of the Open Mic. He had made a decision then. Let Alex go, at least for now, let him find some damn joy with someone who was better for him than Michael had ever been. 

But if trying to get over Maria had been hard, getting over Alex was a damn near impossibility.

For months, he’d buried himself into his work, into rebuilding the lab, into learning and thinking and reflecting, all so that he could be better, become a better man, all in the hope that one day, he and Alex would find their way back to each other. Somehow though, in all the trying, he hadn’t even noticed how the _thing_ that had connected them for all these years had slowly withered away, not until the distinct lack of it had hit him like a punch in the stomach just now, right there in that crowded bar. 

It had felt like losing his mother all over again. 

One less thing tethering him to this crap-show of a planet. 

Slowly, his breathing evened out, the pain in his chest receding to a dull ache. Maybe it was finally time for him to do what was right for _him_. He’d never gotten to do that, he realized in a startling moment of self-realization. Every decision he’d ever made had been for someone else, in one way or another. Even getting together with Maria had been an act of defiance rather than a real choice.

The others would be fine without him. Liz had been back for a while now, and while she and Max still tread carefully around each other, he knew that it was only a matter of time before they found their way back together. And while Isobel was still struggling with everything Noah had done to her, fact was that she was getting stronger every day. She didn’t need him, Max had never needed him, and Alex…

Well. Alex was just fine without him. 

Michael sniffed, pretended that his eyes were burning because of the wind and stood up straight. It was past time to do what he should have done when he was seventeen. And if that meant leaving it all behind? Well, then so be it. At least he’d have a chance to make something of himself. 

“No more throwing my life away,” he murmured and turned to go. 

* * * *

“You know, you could have just said thank you.” Maria set the fresh beer in front of him and Alex acknowledged the gesture with a grateful nod. “Guerin _was_ only trying to help.”

“Help me with what? Handle my relationship?” Alex retorted, pointedly not looking over at Forrest, who was standing by the pool table, aggressively waiting for an apology. Their talk hadn’t exactly gone well. “I am very much capable of doing that on my own, Maria, and I certainly don’t need my renegade ex-boyfriend to do it for me.”

She sent him a calculating look, a DeLuca special that Alex both feared and was in awe of. “I’m not blind, Alex”, she said, her tone oddly gentle. “None of us are. Forrest is a nice enough guy, but he clearly isn’t what you need - or want - right now. Even Isobel told me that she was surprised you two were still together, and if _she_ picked up on the tension between you two…”

“Then Guerin certainly could.” Alex sighed and scrubbed a hand roughly over his face. “Shit.”

Grabbing his other hand, Maria gave it a quick squeeze. “Buckle up, cowboy. Not the first time you two had some difficulties, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. Drive over there with a sixer, give him a deep look outta these soul-browns and I’m sure he’ll forgive ya faster than a shotgun bullet find its target.”

Alex chuckled, shaking his head. “It’s not that easy,” he said then, grimacing. 

“Why not?”

Because we’re not good for each other right now, he thought. Because we need to learn who we can be without that constant pull. Because whenever we are together, sparks fly, and the important things get lost in the blaze.

He said none of those things. Instead, he shrugged and prayed that Maria’s alien intuition was taking a break. “We’ve been hurting each other a lot over the years. I guess it was only a matter of time before one of us had enough.”

She rocked back on her feet, then leaned forward and stole a sip from his beer. “But you love him, right?” she asked, almost casually. “Despite all the reasons not to, and the fights, and the hurt?”

Alex swallowed. “Yeah,” he murmured, his throat growing tight with unexpected emotion. “And I probably always will. But maybe love’s just not enough to make it work between us.”

Marias dark eyes were sympathetic as she looked at him, and to his shame, he could see an echo of her own pain reflected in them. “Well, that sucks,” she said. Her hands were on his. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, giving her a sad smile. “Yeah, me too.”

Maria leaned against him and together they shared the last of the beer, each of them lost in their own thoughts. “Look,” she finally said, a wry smile playing around her lips. “Maybe the two of you just need some space, yeah? Some distance, to put things back into perspective. I may not be the right person to say this to you - in fact, I’m probably the last person who should - but I’m kind of rooting for you two.”

That in itself was a revelation, but Alex was too occupied with the sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. Distance, she’d said. _Space_. 

He got up so fast that his chair scraped noisily over the floor, drawing Maria’s startled gaze. “Alex?” she asked, dark eyes worried as she watched him hover in place.

He shook his head, raking trembling fingers through his hair. There was no time to explain, no time to tell her about the cold hard ball of pure dread that sat in his gut, not when every second wasted was one more that could take Michael farther away from him. “I-I have to go,” he said, grabbing his wallet and fumbling out a couple of notes. 

Maria’s eyebrows rose at the urgency in his tone, but then her attention turned inwards. “Yeah,” she said in a dreamy sort of voice, fingers touching the place on her chest were her necklace used to sit. “I think you should hurry.” 

Alex intended to, but he did take the time to bend down and press a soft kiss to her cheek. “Thank you, Maria,” he murmured, softly. 

Gaze clearing, she smiled at him. “Go already,” she said, shooing him off. 

Alex did, halfway across the room before she’d even finished speaking. He could only hope that he wasn’t too late.

****

He found Guerin right where he had expected him to be, which was both a good and a bad thing. Sure, there was some relief to see him still in the bunker, with the pieces of alien tech still there and not yet reassembled to pilot a ship, and yet, Alex would have preferred to have been wrong in his belief that Guerin was getting ready to leave. As it turned out, though, he’d been right all along because what Guerin was doing looked suspiciously like packing. 

Alex took a deep breath, tried to keep his voice level. “Guerin.”

The other man didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge Alex’s presence at all. His gaze was fixed on the swirling, shimmering pieces of alien metal that hovered before him, too many to count, all of them fixed in an intricate dance only Guerin seemed to know the choreography for. 

He seemed mesmerized by it and Alex could understand why. By itself, the glittering shards were beautiful, but like this, moving and with their strange light reflecting off of each other, they seemed like so much more than pieces of something that had broken so long ago.

Alex tore his eyes away from the magnificent display and stepped closer. Not close enough to touch Guerin, but enough so that he could feel the warmth of him on his own skin. “Guerin,” Alex repeated, wincing when his voice cracked. “Look at me, please.”

At last, awareness returned and Guerin turned around to face him. The shards froze in place as if stuck into the very fabric of reality. “What are you doing here?” he asked, voice flat.

Alex shook his head, not quite able to meet Guerin’s hard gaze. “You left the bunker open.”

Guerin sniffed. “That’s not an answer.”

Alex nodded, conceding the point even as he wasn’t yet ready to actually answer the question. “I was at the Pony,” he said instead, looking around the room, noting the random boxes that definitely hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen the bunker. “And I was talking to Maria and I had this feeling...” He shook his head. “I just knew I had to come find you.”

“Right.” Guerin’s expression was shuttered. “So, Maria sent you?”

Alex drew his brows together. “No, she didn’t,” he said slowly, now quite sure what was going through the other man’s head. “But she didn’t stop me from coming either.”

Guerin huffed. “Great. Probably thought you were the best bet for getting me to change my mind.” Turning, he began to methodically pluck the console pieces out of the air, joining some of them together and leaving some as they were. “You know, I really thought we were past this.”

Alex watched him helplessly, words stuck in his throat. He didn’t see rhyme or reason to what Guerin was doing - he still had no idea how the alien tech really worked, despite all of his research into Project Shepard - but Guerin seemed to know exactly which piece was meant to go where. With every piece collected, Alex’s heart began to beat harder, thumping in his chest. “Past what?” He finally croaked out.

“This,” Guerin snarled, gesturing between them. The shimmering pieces swirled around them in dizzying circles as he exploded into motion and began to shove things in boxes seemingly at random. “This _thing_ between us people keep exploiting. I love you, Alex, I fucking always will, but it’s not fair to yank me around by my feelings. And it’s not fair to you either, I _know_ that, and I can’t fucking believe Maria of all people would do this to us.”

Alex found it hard to breathe. “You love me?” was all he could say, all he could think.

Guerin stopped, frozen in place. “Fuck,” he said, low and wounded. “ _Fuck_ , Alex. Do you really have to ask me that?”

But the thing was, Alex did. So much had gone unsaid between them and the things that had been said… well, there were a lot of those he’d rather forget. “You chose Maria.” He forced out, struggling to not sound bitter. “You wanted something uncomplicated, something new, and I understand why, Guerin, but don’t act like as if things have always been so clear-cut between us that I don’t get to ask for clarification.” 

Guerin grimaced. “Maybe I thought that after all we’ve been through together, some things didn’t need saying. Doesn’t matter anyway.” His voice was so low it kept breaking. “Seeing as you’re with Forrest. I’m not gonna fuck this up for you, Alex, I’m not. Even if I don’t think he’s good enough for you, but who am I to talk, right?”

Alex’s heart seized in his chest. There was a finality in Guerin’s tone that not even his wry grin could camouflage. “So, you’re running,” he said, flatly. “As far away as you can get, by the looks of it.”

Guerin shrugged. “Yeah, well,” he muttered. “I learned from the best.”

They cut deep, those words. Alex drew back, trying to work through what they revealed about them and about the way Guerin still felt, even after everything he had done since then to make up for his mistakes. Hopelessness spread through him and it was only when his palm met rough fabric that he noticed he’d brought his hand up to rub at his chest, right where the pain was the worst. 

Michael’s eyes snapped up to his at the slight sound he couldn’t quite suppress, and guilt swamped his features. “Alex, I,” he said, huffing around a grimace. “Shit. I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I think you did,” Alex forced out, trying to smile but knowing that it came out more than a grimace. He really, _really_ was getting fed up with having to learn the same lesson over and over again. Maybe it was time to let this thing between them go, to let _Michael_ go, once and for all. “You know what? You have my fucking blessing. Go build your rocket and just blast off to god-knows-where. Obviously, neither I nor your siblings are enough to hold you here, so, just. Go. Because who knows, maybe you’ll finally find your peace then, even if it’s in fucking space-“

“What?” Michael interrupted, looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’m not going into space – Alex, what did you think I was doing here?”

“Assembling the ship,” Alex croaked out, vision blurry. “I thought you were finishing the control console, that you were-” He couldn’t go on, couldn’t talk around the lump in his throat.

Michael was still staring, amber eyes as dark as they ever got. “You thought I was leaving _Earth_?”

Alex nodded, miserably. 

“Jesus Christ.” Michael sounded as if someone had shaken the ground on which he was standing. As if _Alex_ had. “I wouldn’t just do that. Y’know, there was some part of me that has always known that a fuck-up, waste of space cowboy like me never really stood a chance at a happily ever after with someone like you, but I really thought you knew me better than that.” 

The dull resignation in his tone was so much worse than anger would have been. Something in Alex broke upon hearing it and he moaned deep on his throat. “I don’t,” he rasped, fisting the material of his jacket in an attempt to get some of the pressure off his chest, “I don’t know what you _want_ from me, what you need to not want to go…” He only realized he was crying when Michael shook his head and stepped in close, reaching up with one hand to wipe away the salty wetness from his cheeks with his thumb.

“Shit, c’mere,” he murmured and then he pulled Alex close and he fell into that familiar strength. He breathed in that unique scent, pushed his nose into the crook of Michael’s neck and let himself be held until the shakes subsided and he could exhale without them coming out as sobs. 

They stood there for a while before anything other than the sound of Alex losing his shit penetrated the bubble of intimacy they’d created. 

“I was packing them up.” Michael said finally. His voice was low, his tone intimate. He surrounded Alex with one hand buried in his hair, cradling the back of his head, while the other was rubbing soothing circles into the small of his back. With every stroke, some of the tension left Alex’s body and if he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Michael was using some sort of alien power to pull the anxiety from him. “I _was_ leaving, but not… I would never, Alex, not without-” he stopped, seemed to reconsider. “Not without saying goodbye.”

Alex drew back, tried to not be too self-conscious of either the fact that he’d just had a minor breakdown in the arms of the man he considered to be the love of his life, or that his face must be splotchy and red and wet with more than tears. “What were you going to say just now?” he asked softly, peering up at Michael through wet lashes, scrubbing his face with the sleeve of his jacket, grimacing when it left a wet stain. “Before you changed your mind?”

Michael grimaced. “It doesn’t matter-” he started to say, but Alex shook his head.

“It does matter.” He was sure of that. “Tell me.”

This time it was Michael that drew back, his arms falling away. He looked frustrated all of a sudden, obviously regretting what he’d just revealed. “You really don’t want to know, trust me.”

“Yeah, but maybe I need to.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. “Please?”

Huffing in frustration, Michael dipped his head forward so that his curls obscured half of his face. “I was going to say that I would never leave the goddamn planet without taking you with me, Alex, okay?” he bit out, angry, but drawn inward, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of his own foolishness. “Is that what you wanted to hear? That I’m so pathetic that even though I _know_ you don’t want me, that you’re with someone else, I still would rather get stuffed into an alien torture chamber than to even contemplate leaving this dirtball without you-”

Alex stopped the flow of words in the most efficient way he knew how. Well, second most efficient, he conceded, but somehow, he didn’t think that kissing him would help to uncomplicate the situation, so he went with a simple hand-over-mouth solution. “Thank you for telling me that,” he said when Michael quieted under his firm hold. “And just for the record, if hoping against hope is pathetic, well then count me among the afflicted.” He let that sink in but didn’t elaborate, even as Michaels eyes darkened in interest. 

Letting him go, Alex stepped back again, wincing when he bumped into one of the pieces of alien tech that was somehow, miraculously, still suspended in mid-air. It didn’t shatter, didn’t fall and Alex shot a quick glance at Michael, impressed at his control. “So,” he asked, trying for a normal tone and mostly succeeding, “where were you going then, if not, y’know, up?”

Faint color rose in Michael’s cheeks and he hedged by brushing some dust from the corner of the worktable. “Albuquerque,” he answered then, just as Alex thought he wouldn’t at all.

So relieved he felt faint with it, Alex leaned back, sacking against a tower of boxes. “Albuquerque,” he repeated slowly. “The one in New Mexico? The one that’s barely three hours away even if you drive like Kyle?”

The color deepened, but Michael met his gaze unflinchingly. “Yes, Alex, _that_ Albuquerque. I sort of have a standing offer from UNM, for their engineering program. Thought I’d start in the fall semester.”

Of course, he had a standing offer for a scholarship that was still good after more than ten years. Alex felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, let it take hold easily. “Impressive,” he murmured, feeling almost giddy as a weight he hadn’t even known he was carrying lifted off him. They’d be fine, he knew that now, could feel it in the gentle tingle of starlight taking hold in his chest. “You know, I’ve heard the UNM has a great remote program.” 

Michael exhaled slowly. “They do,” he said, looking shell-shocked, half-torn between hope and wary resistance and Alex knew that feeling so well his heart clenched in sympathy. 

Wetting his lips, he tried to ignore the way Michael’s eyes snapped toward the movement, ignored the slow pulse of heat settling deep in his belly. There was plenty of time for that later. Later, when they’d talked more, when Alex had had time to clear up things with Forrest, when the emotional dust of the night’s revelations had a chance to settle. 

Right then, all that didn’t matter. What did was the man standing in front of him and Alex focused his attention on him. “Tell me something then,” he murmured, letting his voice go low and intimate. “What do you need to be able stay?”

Michael swallowed, hard, shrugged, and in that moment managed to somehow look about as awkward as he had when he was seventeen, all his macho swagger gone. But his eyes were clear when they met his, vulnerable and open in a way that stole Alex’s breath. “For someone to ask me to,” was all he said.

Alex’s heart began to beat faster, pushing up against his throat. It wasn’t fear this time, wasn’t despair that drove it into a new rhythm, but anticipation. “Okay then.” Leaning in until their noses almost touched, he brought a hand up Michael’s chest, pressed it to where he could feel the soft thu-thumps of his heart beating in reverse to his own – not in unison, but in harmony. “Stay.” 

Michael huffed out a soft laugh and gave a slow nod. Around them, iridescent pieces of almost-glass floated down from their suspended state, landing gently to the ground, where they had been, where they should be. 

It was a start.


End file.
